In November of 2008 the social networking website Facebook hit 200 million unique visitors with over 140 million active users. At present the Malta network has 28,484 members, this is people that bothered to join a network be it local or otherwise. Social Media is shaping the way marketers think, these social network platforms have “proven” their worth as communication tools and especially in Malta we are starting to see the masses – particularly the 30+ crowd emerging on Facebook as the favoured platform to reconnect with old friends as opposed to the others that aim to make new friends and appeal to the younger market.
In this very brief overview I will try and explain the basics and beauty of Facebook advertising. What I love about social media website’s is that as marketers we have the ability to really narrow down how we target your audience using a combination of demographic and psychographic filters , Facebook offers the following options:
- Location
- Age
- Gender
- Keywords
- Education
- Workplace
- Relationship Status
- Relationship Interests
- Languages
This clearly gives you the edge over Google Adwords and that offered by Yahoo and Microsoft. Much like the competitors with each new Ad campaign, you can set a daily budget, this represents the maximum amount that you are willing to spend for each day you are advertising.
Facebook will automatically stop showing your ad once your budget has been met for the day so you will never accrue charges in excess of your set budget. There is no set cost for Facebook ads, but you can estimate the cost for your ads in the ad creation interface. Facebook will also recommend a bid price for each click (CPC) or thousand impressions (CPM), just enter your targeting criteria (options outlined above) and go through to ad creation and schedule, again this has many flexible options. Like Adwords and the others, you can decide whether you want to pay for clicks or pay for views depending on what you want your advert to achieve.
Finally, you’ll want to confirm the maximum you are willing to pay per click or per 1000 impressions depending on your payment method. The suggested bid range shows you what other advertisers are currently bidding to reach people in your target. For best results, you should bid at least as much as the minimum suggested bid.
Tracking the performance of your ad campaign
The “Advertising Performance” report will give you information about your ads’ performance in terms of impressions, clicks, click-through rates, etc. The “Responder Demographics” report will give you more information about the users who are viewing or taking action on your ads.
You can also choose to summarize your report by Account, Campaign or Ad. Account reports give you statistics at the account level, which means that all clicks and impressions will be totalled across all your ads and campaigns. The Campaign reports will break these statistics down to the campaign level, and the Ad reports will break them down further to the individual ad level allowing you to really narrow down and target your ads giving you a minefield of information that in the hands of the inexperienced could leave you wondering what to do next. However, Facebook’s interface is not as daunting as Google’s Adwords.
Monthly reports will give you statistics totalled by month, while weekly or daily reports will be totalled by those units of time. Although at the moment not all time options will be available for all reports however I’m sure Facebook will only improve on this system over time.
Cultivating a Facebook Group
Setting up a free Facebook group allows you to offer a real community appeal, allowing users the ability to interact by posting discussions, wall posts, pictures and videos. Making the group public allows anyone to join and invite members allowing the network to rapidly grow. At the time of writing the a group created sometime in the beginning of February 2009 regarding safe driving in Malta has attracted 1,399 members with the aim of hiring a legal expert to file a lawsuit against the ADT. Getting people interested in your brand creates loyalty and allows you to spread your message in a very cost effective manner.
